Girls find their voices through “Listen To Me” clubs in grassroots communities in Uganda

0

by Safe Abortion, Nov 3, 2016

From a small, slummy village in the outskirts of Kisowera in Kawempe division, on the boundary of Kampala and Wakiso district in Uganda, many adolescent girls spend the whole day sleeping. Why? Because from 6pm in the evening, this small town begins to fill up with young girls in search of survival benefits. Few girls in this area go to school, and those who do so are usually pulled out due to unwanted pregnancies before they graduate and others end up with severe complications due unsafe abortions and sometimes deaths before they turn 18.

But Majorine has different plans for her future. She wants to be a lawyer in order to defend the rights of young people in courts of law whose rights will be violated. Asked why she felt that way, after some minutes of silence, Majorine narrated how she had lost her 16-year-old close friend, who was orphaned and who had HIV but was practising positive living. Her friend was engaging in commercial sex and had failed to raise the 400,000 Uganda shillings she needed to pay for her abortion, the amount demanded by an old lady for the abortion herbs.